Oil dropped as the International Energy Agency (IEA) said a global surplus will persist into next year and limit any chance of a short-term price rebound.
April futures in New York slid as much as 2.3 percent after the March contract expired on Monday up 6.2 percent.
While supply and demand will be aligned next year, large accumulated stockpiles will slow the pace of recovery in prices, the IEA said in its medium-term report.
US inventories probably expanded further from the highest level in more than eight decades, according to a Bloomberg survey.
“The increase in stockpiles will mean oil will remain lower for longer,” Melbourne-based IG Ltd market strategist Evan Lucas said by telephone. “The supply side is a big hurdle. We expect prices to edge up ever so slightly in the second quarter, it’ll inch toward US$35 and average around that level.”
Oil is down about 11 percent this year on speculation a global glut will persist amid the outlook for increased exports from Iran and brimming US stockpiles. The Persian Gulf state will add more output capacity than any other OPEC member over the next six years as it seeks to regain lost market share after the removal of sanctions, the IEA said.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for April delivery lost as much as US$0.75 to US$32.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at US$32.90 at 2:56pm Hong Kong time. Total volume traded was about 17 percent above the 100-day average. The March contract rose US$1.84 at US$31.48 on Monday, the highest for front-month prices since Feb. 4. WTI lost 30 percent last year.
Brent for April settlement dropped as much as US$0.69, or 2 percent, to US$34 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of US$1.29 to WTI for April.
US inventories probably rose by 3 million barrels last week, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.
Stockpiles have swelled to more than 500 million barrels, the most since 1930, according to Energy Information Administration data.
Prices will reach US$80 a barrel by 2020 as global supply growth is “seriously” plunging, the head of the IEA said on Monday.
Oil will start to rise at the end of next year as demand overtakes supply and stockpiles start to shrink, Fatih Birol said during the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston.
While inventories will start declining in 2018, the price rebound would be limited by production from US shale plays, he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained